world·view (wûrld‘ vyoo)
noun 1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
[thefreedictionary.com]
To begin with, the only worldview that can account for morality is the Christian biblical worldview. God almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, in Whom all truth and logic inheres, has revealed Himself through the Incarnation of the Son, and by the Spirit inspired Scriptures. Also, in creating mankind in His image, God embedded our ability to reason according to and by the standard of His immutable nature. So there is special revelation which brings Christians near to God, as well as general revelation which leaves all without excuse for not acknowledging Him. There is no explanation for rational thought itself, let alone morality, outside of the Triune God of Scripture.
Therefore the atheist cannot logically make a claim as to whether or not anything is “right” or “wrong”, because he has no standard to appeal to. If we are just masses of protoplasm that randomly evolved from slime, what difference does anything make? In that worldview, we are only instigated to do whatever we do by “survival of the fittest”. What’s right for you may be wrong for me; what’s offensive to you may be my cup of tea. Why can’t someone just take another life if they find it convenient and choose to? Ridiculous? Absolutely! In the absence of the fear of God, there is nothing to constrain one’s disposition to man. There are other such wayward worldviews as are common to fallen mankind, which contrast starkly with the Christian worldview of creation under God’s law. Along with the atheist, adherents to these worldviews willfully reject God by replacing Him with something else that they look to for their identity and values.
One particularly vehement and deeply ingrained example of a sociopolitical persuasion is the “racial” (more properly termed ethnic) worldview, held by segments of society separating themselves, for example as Blacks, or Italians, or Jews, or Latinos, etc., etc. or even “White supremacists” — which indicates that such distinctions need not only be applicable to “minority groups”. Hitler’s Third Reich was based on a worldview of Germans as the “master race”. In this country, where a war was fought 150 years ago to abolish slavery, the Black worldview today most powerfully epitomizes a “racial” state of mind, not just manifested by Black TV, Black History Month, Congressional Black Caucus, etc., but even to the point of distinguishing a “Black Liberation Theology”. While many U.S. citizens no longer define themselves primarily by ethnic heritage, there are many that remain first and foremost not Christian, nor American, nor even just a man or a woman; but rather identify themselves above all else as Black. Accordingly, a common set of values within this group (not from the external standard of any “higher authority”) is propagated — all-too-typically to include a perpetual victimhood mentality and unwavering allegiance to the Democrat party so that there is a non-negotiable commitment to blindly support the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetoro, no matter how questionable his eligibility, qualifications, competency or character; or even how unmitigated of a disaster for the nation as a whole he has proven to be. Ridiculous? Absolutely!
The effect of this racial worldview is to lead us away from being one nation under God, towards dependency on an increasingly tyrannical federal government. The most aberrant aspect of it is that it flies in the face of the fact that there is only one “race”, the human race! We are all descendent from Adam, and from Noah. What we have is different people groups and combinations of physical characteristics, genetically distinguished by the amount of melanin in the skin and other physical traits. The concept of separate “races” as in different species or “kinds” among people is the pernicious thinking of the evolution worldview, which is where the idea of “racism” comes from. The institution of slavery in the new world was a scourge justified by that mindset. Jim Crow in the American south reinforced it with the “little dab ‘ll do ya” theory to perpetuate segregation. Thus developed a mixed “class” of people who went from being called “mulattoes” to “quadroons” to “octaroons”; to “colored”, to “negro” to “black” to “African-American” — a hyphenated term which doesn’t seem to have stuck any better than any of the others, bringing the preferred nomenclature back to “Black”, no matter the broad range of actual skin shades of persons so culturally distinguished. Ridiculous? Absolutely!
Some had hoped for a “post-racial” era to be ushered in by Obama’s election, but instead his presidency has been an extremely divisive influence on this nation. Rather than providing leadership towards unity, seeking common ground to achieve bipartisan objectives, this illegitimate president’s m.o. has been to ramrod his extreme leftist policies down everyone’s throat, if not by partisan power then by executive order. The net effect has been polarized political discourse, worsened congressional gridlock, heightened ideological animosity, and greater enmity between people groups. On top of that the democrat controlled senate even rejected the Obama budget, such that this administration has not even gotten a budget passed in over 3 years. Still, in spite of this most biblically hostile imposter having the worst economic record conceivable by a president in a single term — the highlights of which are a $6 TRILLION increase in national debt and sustained unemployment above 8% (conservatively estimated) — the “race”-based block of voters continues to support him. Ridiculous? Absolutely!
We might hopefully assume that there will be at least some attrition by citizens within this group who wake up from a parasitical dependency on government, and from the false hope that government can provide societal utopia for them or anyone else. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
These dynamics are clear indications of the abhorrent nature of sin in a fallen world. A people group enslaved, brutalized and hanging from trees like “strange fruit” is the imagery of the horrific history which this nation carries as baggage to this day, even after the election of a person with brown skin to the highest office in the land. I remember my dad, who had dark brown skin, telling me the story of how (some time in the 1940s I presume) he stepped into a facility where there was a job opportunity fair of sorts, and immediately over the loudspeaker, the facilitator broadcast the words “I can’t do nothin’ for you”. No one can deny the horrible wickedness of colonial slavery and its enduring effects that no man nor war could simply “abolish”. Indeed the emotional scars of institutionalized persecution are deep and long lasting, and such wounds can never be healed but by the grace of God.
Martin Luther King had the dream that one day people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. He never dreamed that the content of their character would be based on the color of their skin. While the civil rights movement in the USA made profoundly positive strides, politically; now nanny-statism threatens to reverse the progress of liberty, as government oppression and citizen dependency is just a different form of slavery. Here’s the bottom line: notwithstanding all human causes and effects, the changing of hearts and minds, spiritually, is in the purview of the sovereign Spirit of God alone. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The evil one, satan (name intentionally not capitalized), our adversary from the beginning, who is the devil, fosters the locking in of the racial worldview and hatred for those who dare to think outside of that box. It is a bitter irony that those who to this day self consciously subscribe to the black democrat dependency group-think may believe that they are “keepin’ it real”, when in fact they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness by perpetuating the great deception of “racial” pigeonholing.
There are those of us who have both African and European ancestry who are 50 cents away from having a quarter, and just want the economy to improve and opportunities to increase, for freedom and liberty to prevail as the gospel spreads; not for citizens to be controlled and provided for by big government. So its not just “white people” or “the rich” who are against Obama and the historically demonstrated ills of socialism, which pit the people against each other by “class” and by “race”. We as a nation desperately need to get past all that, and it is only possible when eyes are opened to see that there is no pain, no hate, no envy, no fear, no heartache, no wickedness, no nothing beyond the healing grace of Jesus… that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4).
What all of mankind and creation desperately need and groan for is reconciliation with God, to enable living according to His purpose; with forgiveness, respect and love for one another as all likewise bearers of His image. All people of all persuasions are called to repent and believe the gospel. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
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But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18)
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